Dresdan santa rosa

Steeple Chase: Part 3

16

JUL/10

Game Date: May 31
Neiman and Roxanne are still hanging at Michael’s. Ty and Zak, another member of his pack, found out where the tattooed man lived and went to his house, and he was not happy about that. He used magic and Ty assumed he was a wizard.

Ty calls Michael and Michael asked if he knows whether this guy is a wizard or a sorcerer. When Ty and Zak were snooping around he found three small rabbits with their ears tied together. It seemed like a ritual of some sort to Ty.

The rabbits point to something thaumaturgical and it seems to be some sort of evocation-type thing. The discovery indicates that he is not a focused practitioner.

Michael finds a book, Archive of Magical People in Northern California, which is one of the Schultz journals. He is looking for someone that fits the description of Shaylee’s stalker. He finds something, but he decides to mark the book to read it to all of us when we are together again. Michael is more than a little distracted most of the time.

Neiman and Roxanne are hanging out at Michael’s. Michael disappears, muttering to us to help ourselves to the kitchen. Roxanne makes some spaghetti. They eat and take a quick nap on the couch.

Shaylee calls her folks and her Mom answers and tells her that her Dad is not there that he had a business trip. However Shaylee gets the impression that her mother is not being completely honest. She presses but her mother continues to be evasive.

Lothario runs out to get dinner. And Neil is doing some research on the tattoos that were on the arm of Shaylee’s stalker.

I get a call from Neil, he says he has some information and wants to meet with me but not with any of my friends. So I tell him that I can meet him the next morning at the Starbucks up the street. He agrees.

Michael comes in as I was talking on the phone with Neil. I tell Michael that he left the stove on and I made spaghetti, and invite him to have some. He is serves himself some and suddenly drops his plate and says “If I were Obi Wan Kenobi I would feel a disturbance in the force.” He then very nonchalantly asks me if I would be a dear and clean up the mess he just made. Neiman and I clean up and then decide to head to my place for the night.

Michael does some more research and tries to find the Book of Countless Sorrows. No one who reads the book remains sane. Michael tries to remember if he has ever read it and forgotten that he had read it. He can’t remember. There is a spell in the Book of Countless Sorrows that can remove all evil from the world. This is a rumor, but he finds several references to this rumor. No one who has ever looked at the book has ever talked about it.

Shaylee is doing some research as well- she runs into some bit of information: she finds the website that talks about a secret society of elders that rule the world. They have a group of elders that control territories- and she noticed that there are some territories where they no longer hold control- and have not for about 100 yrs. There are a lot of theories about why this is, but she can’t find any real proof to support any of the theories. Northern California is one of the uncontrolled territories.

It is getting late now- Neil turns on his police scanner and listens for anything interesting.

Michael comes back downstairs and notices that Neiman and I are gone and the place is cleaned up. He looks for Neil’s card and calls him and says that someone has been murdered tonight in a gruesome manner. He says he was not really sure about this but thought he felt a disturbance in the force and thought it meant something. He says that he dropped his spaghetti and now has come downstairs and the people that were there are gone and they have cleaned up the mess. He says “Just thought you should know” and hangs up.

Neil calls in to the station and says he may have a lead that there might be a murder that may have been committed. He says the lead came from a guy that might be a crackpot- but he thinks that it is worth looking into.

It is morning now.

Neiman and I head to Starbucks to meet with Neil. He tells us that the second victim, the choir director, was named Freestone. He was a street kid and refused to go home after testifying at his father’s trial. He testified that his dad actually had killed his mom. He has a known associate since he has been on the street: Corbin Brist. Neil has been unable to track down anything about Corbin. There is a guy named Dwight Bredis and he has been missing for about 5 years and his art style was similar to the deaths. He used to live in Cotati. Freestone used to be a criminal before he “found God”.

Neil also tells Roxanne that he got a call from Michael and tells us about the odd message. He tells me that Freestone had two Facebook accounts. One was under his real name and one was under an alias. The alias is the name that people knew him by when he was on the street. Neither Neiman or Roxanne can check out the Facebook pages as they both have problems with computers. So Neil will have to do that research.

After having coffee with Neil, Neiman and Roxanne decide to go back to Davenports. Neil decides to go with us despite his feelings about the crazy wizard. When we arrive, Michael answers the door and Neil realizes that Michael is faking the British accent.

After Neil fills in Michael on what he knows, then there is a knock on the door. It is Shaylee (Neil’s friend’s daughter) and Ty, who Neil doesn’t know.

Michael tells everyone that he has some information for us. Then there is another knock on the door. It is Lothario. When Neil mentions the name Corbin Brist- Michael realizes he has read about him. At age 13 Corbin’s house burned down, and he lost all his family. He was placed with an uncle but he ran away shortly after the placement. Michael mutters something about his uncle and how lucky he was.

There is some speculation in Shultz’s notes that Corbin may have been responsible for the fire. Corbin first came on Shultz’s radar after a hit and run accident. The car accident involved a Marcus Vanderwell and the only survivor of the accident was Margaret Vadnerwell, who happens to be the first murder victim. Shultz had conducted an interview with her trying to track down Corbin. One thing she mentions is that after the accident, right immediately after the accident, someone leaned in the window and laughed at her, as her husband was dying next to her. She is sure that it is the same person that caused the accident. Then later there is an incident that gets Schultz’s attention, he sees a man that has a tattoo that he knows for a fact is connected to the Book of Countless Sorrows. It was about 4 ½ yrs ago that Shultz had had the interaction with Corbin. Shultz is certain that Corbin is a sorcerer.

The information about Corbin was near the end of Shultz’s journals. And the description that Michael has of Corbin matches the description that Ty has of Shaylee’s stalker.